Menendez invokes MLK Jr.

Sen. Robert Menendez is drawing strength from the words of Martin Luther King Jr., openly addressing the accusations that have enveloped him amid a reported FBI probe into his behavior in the Dominican Republic and a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into his relationship with a donor.

“We face anonymous, faceless, nameless individuals from right-wing sources seeking to destroy a lifetime of work. And their scares are false. I have worked too hard and too long in the vineyards to allow, at my hands, for the harvest to be soured,” Menendez said Sunday at the Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton, N.J., according to NJ.com.

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“Dr. King said that ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,’” he added. “In the end, I believe that justice will overcome the forces of darkness...Scriptures tell us that he who ‘puts his hand to the plough and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.’”

The New Jersey Democrat spoke at the annual “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” program, which celebrates Black History Month. He came under FBI scrutiny amid reports of anonymous allegations surrounding his trips to the Dominican Republic to visit prostitutes with Dr. Salomon Melgen, a big donor and friend. The senator also reportedly helped Melgen in a dispute with Medicare and is under investigation by the Ethics Committee over his interactions with Melgen concerning several unreported flights on Melgan’s private plane to the Dominican Republic. These accusations and inquiries have showed in the polls, where his approval rating dropped 15 percent.

Menendez, however, told his audience that he would remain focused on the issues.

“I have my hand on the plough,” he said, “and I am going to continue to look forward and to work to make that plough lead us to the fulfillment of educational, economic and health care opportunity in this country.”